Newcastle United Official Statement: Graham Carr leaves the club

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An official statement released on Wednesday night has revealed the club’s head scout has parted company with NUFC.

Difficult not to see this as anything but positive and hopefully, that it means Rafa Benitez has been given the go ahead to have even more control of the transfer process.

Graham Carr is seen as a key player in what proved to be a disastrous transfer policy, with players bought who were not fit for purpose leading to a second relegation in seven years.

Mike Ashley’s main man in trying to bring in young foreign players in the hope of future profit, hopefully Carr’s departure is another sign of better times ahead and a more ambitiously ran club.

Newcastle United official statement:

‘Newcastle United’s chief scout Graham Carr has today parted company with the club by mutual consent.

Graham has been United’s chief scout for seven years, taking up the position towards the end of the 2009/10 season which saw the club gain promotion back to the Premier League under former manager Chris Hughton.

writing on the wall for Carr the day Rafa took over. Living on past glories- had to go. Hope Rafa brings in someone who can bring some gems in from our own country for a change but suspect the spanish market will be the area that Rafa is looking to exploit. Who will be coming in? interesting times ahead.

Steven05

This will surely help to quieten some of the constant negativity

Leazes Ender

Scouted some decent players to sell on at a profit for the fat man.

Geordie-7676

By that token then, he did exactly what his work contract stipulated. Model employee!

Leazes Ender

Complicit in corrupting a football club to the level of a retailer…..guilty as charged.

Mrkgw

The right move for the club I feel. Change of direction now, hopefully for the better.

Somehow I don’t count Atsu as a new signing :) Valid points on the last two.

toonterrier

He’ll never be forgotten. His name will be entered in the doomsday book. Still bet he left with his wallet bulging.

Alex

Might still be seing those nice men from HMRC, though.

Geordiegiants

Excellent news, it’s another peice of negativity gone from the club, it’s down to the big man now. Hopefully we won’t be linked with loads of French league sh’te now.
Who is on the board at Newcastle these days, it was Chatty man, Moncur, Penfold and Tufty the last I knew?

MadMag83

“He can count some of Newcastle’s most successful players in recent years as his ‘finds’.”

He can also count just as many donkeys as his ‘finds’. Charnley is really clutching at straws if he is seriously suggesting Sissoko was one of the good ones.

I wonder if Penfold is worried about his job now.

Geordie-7676

Sissoko was a good find…..great player….when he wanted to be.

Unfortunately the one thing that a buying club and scout will not find out until the deal is done is the attitude of a person. Sissoko had, and still has a stinking one.

Damon Horner

Wonder what the narrative will be now regarding transfers from our experts in the fanbase.

Rich Lawson

Free to form a comedy double act with his son,the new chuckle bro’s.

X,WHY,Y MAN.

Ashley will not be too fussed here because it only cost him a few quid to send him on The Eurostar every now and again.

Cuh736

Rafalution

MichaelMaximusMoose

When ?

Jimblag23

Round about when you get a life.

Steve

I will now be able sleep a little better tonight, knowing that more of the rot belonging to the Ashley regime has packed up and left. Good times ahead I hope.

nevfur

Happy that Rafa has his own way clearer now but think Carr got more abuse than he deserved. Yes he was behind some bad signings but then how many get all of their signings right. Also wonder how many signings he recommended that were passed over yet have gone on to be stars and how many might have done better if the manager at the time had had more faith in them. He was also a fan of the club not just a hired hand and his heart in the right place. I wish him well for the future.

Down Under Mag

I agree, I commented yesterday that he had a hard mandate – find cheap players who were good enough to prove themselves and increase in value…all the while needing to find players that other clubs didn’t want/know about because Ashley wouldn’t match fees and wages.

The abuse directed at him was a little O.T.T. at times but I suspect he was scrutinised a lot more because he was in Ashley’s Boys Club and seen as part of the problem. I guarrantee that Rafa will be cut a lot more slack should he continue to get some wrong.

At the end of the day, Carr brought us some good players in that we refused to try to keep because it was a profit margin issue. Had he been allowed to keep the players that were good and bring in his first choice signings every window then I think we would be sitting here looking back on his time with a lot fonder memories. Sadly, any scout network is only as good as what the owner will allow them to be!

Down Under Mag

A positive step forward in allowing Rafa to have the input needed to rebuild the club, however a part of me just sees this as yet another delay tactic along with the sale rumours that isn’t getting players through the door. Perhaps lack of signings has caused this to happen BUT it worries me where the club structure stands and how it will effect incoming (and outgoing) players for this hugely important window. With any luck Rafa knows his budget and is off trying to secure some new players as I write this without interference. Also, does this mean Carr is no longer on the board?

Allan Kidd

If he has “parted company with the Club”, what do you think???

Down Under Mag

At most clubs it would go without saying…who knows with this crazy club though :)

MichaelMaximusMoose

Brought players in to make a profit for the Fat Man & not to enhance the playing side of the club
he was a major part in Nufc`s relegation & we have been left with a squad not fit for purpose

Geordie-7676

He brought targets to the board, the board chose which to bring in. He didn’t negotiate contracts, he didn’t decide which to sell and at what price. He did the job he was told to do, and was not 100% unsuccessful.

MichaelMaximusMoose

what a load of Bollix

Geordiegiants

He was on the board.

Soldier

exactly

Geordie-7676

He only joined the board in June 2015…..if you look at the disastrous signings over the last 2 years that he would of had any kind of say on in the contracts, we are only looking at Saivet and Thauvin who could be classed as total failures.

All others, those on ridiculous contracts etc. all hail from pre-board-Carr!

Dont get me wrong gents, i am happy to see the guy go as i think he passed his sell by date in 2013, but MMM’s post indicated that he was directly, alongside a few select others (Ashley, Penfold and the succession of sh*te ‘Head Coaches’) responsible for relegation, and now apparently not having a fit for purpose squad, which is absolute tosh.

He stuck to his boss’ mandate, and through that we actually managed to do some good business.

Our squad right now, as i already said, was fit for purpose, and will now be changed to reflect the new purpose.

Think he made mistakes, fair enough. Think he should of left a long time ago, me too. Think he had maybe a bit too much say, i agree. Was he responsible, don’t be so naive!!!

Lets also not forget…..if he hadn’t brought players in to match Ashleys requests, ie. buying for sell-on-value, we wouldn’t of made ANY signings.

Geordiegiants

To be fair there is a lot of sense in what you say, but be under no illusion, Carr was a major part of the problem, and he alone has chose our players for the last 7 years. He is a major, major part in our down fall.

Geordie-7676

Not going to disagree that he has had an influence, and that he is directly responsible for the player selections….it in indisputable, and i am certainly under no illusions as to the part he has played, i just think that people need to look at it in the context of what he was tasked to do by the people above him.

I go back again to what i said earlier; He was working according to his employers strategy and demands.

Unsuccessful players are unfortunately a foregone conclusion in today’s game – nobody truly knows how great a player can become, or how far they can fall in a short space of time. Riviere as an example received appraisals from all clubs he had been at as a model professional, dedicated, committed and not short of talent.

The fact that he failed is more the coaches and indeed his own personal lack of ability to adapt to the English game. We should of got rid of him a long time ago, but, the board (which Carr was not on at this point) chose to give him a 6 year contract, on not bad wages, which makes selling extremely difficult, especially if the player himself is happy to trot along on minimal playing time, safe in the knowledge that he is still getting paid for the next 6 years.

In the same window we signed Riviere, we also signed Darlow, Lascelles, Colback, Janmaat, Cabella, Perez and S. De Jong. Darlow and Lascelles have proven to be great business, they arent world class by any stretch of the imagination but they have certainly served the club well when called upon. Colback, again has served the club well, and can not be seen as a disaster. Janmaat was a good player, and most of us were dissapointed when he jumped ship. Cabella had promise, but, like Riviere couldnt adapt to the English game. Siem has been injured, nobody could control that. Historically, up until he joined NUFC his medical record was that of any normal footballer, it was here that the his injury plague started. And then there is Perez. He has dropped off, and certainly hasn’t shown the promise that he showed in first season, but is not a bad player. May not be what we need now, but in his time here, he must be seen as a relative success.

Out of those 8 signings, 2 were so called ‘disasters’.

Terry R Fox

Cynical as I am, I wonder whether this has more to do with the HRMC debacle at the club than anything else?

TheTradge

Thank god, it’s about time this idiot was moved on, the guy was a liability when it came to spending the transfer budget, it’s amazing he was still in a job for as long as he was given the number of relegation scraps we ended up fighting!

HarryHype59

Carr was a one trick pony who focussed too much on recruitment from weaker leagues. His “successes” seem a long time ago. His legacy is a squad littered with flops on long term contracts who are worth far less than the club paid for them (see transfermarkt). Penfold should be next out of the door due to lack of bargaining skills.

Let’s hope Rafa can bring in decent players on the limited budget he has.

Soldier

more good news Pardew`s tipped for Sunderland

Steve Smith

That would be hilarious! But I think he’s holding out for a premier league job. I expect he’ll be parachuted in around December to replace one of the inevitable sacked mangers.

Geordiegiants

If only! It would be great if it happened.

Simon Ritter

Mr Carr will have been suitably rewarded for agreeing to leave the club. His contract had THREE YEARS (37.5%) left to run. For confirmation, see this BBC Sport news item from June 2012:
Newcastle’s chief scout Graham Carr has signed an eight-year contract to keep him at the club until the age of 75. Carr identified much of the talent in Alan Pardew’s team that finished fifth in the Premier League. He picked out the likes of Hatem Ben Arfa, Cheick Tiote, Yohan Cabaye, Papiss Cisse and Sylvain Marveaux. Newcastle’s managing director Derek Llambias told the club’s website: “He has been instrumental in helping us get some truly exceptional players. He has deservedly built one of the best reputations in the business.”
Carr, 67, joined the Magpies in February 2010, when Chris Hughton was in charge. He previously held scouting roles at Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City,

Jezza

Finally.

Lord

Can he take Henri Saivet with him? Because that transfer stunk of backhanders.

HarryHype59

True, as did the Thauvin deal!

Jimblag23

The man was a scout. He scouted players, someone above him signed them. The facts are he got us some good players over the years and he tried to get us Batshyuayi and Lacazette, it’s not his fault the higher ups didn’t pay the money.
It is probably time for him to move on, but he did his job while he was here. Best of luck to him.

Salty

Although we signed some poor players (within the budget the club operated under) there were plenty he recommended that would have improved the team. As well as the 2 you mention there were aubemayang, dele Alli, Eric dier, Wilfred bony, varane etc etc. If Only eh?